We are a one-car family

At noon yesterday we became a one-car family. I've been thinking about this for a while, a couple of years at least. I've been full-time WFH since 2016. Owning 2 cars has been a convenience and not a need for quite a while. My Camry has been paid off for years, so the cost of ownership is low, which has been the main reason we didn't bother to get rid of it.

However, last summer the Camry's AC system started leaking refrigerant. I ended up recharging the system 3 or 4 times over the course of the summer. The Evap. coil is leaking, and replacing that part requires removing the entire dash in the car. It's an 8 hour book job, but fairly uncommon so everyone pads those hours. I was getting $2000+ quotes. I put off dealing with it last year because I was buying a house, and I made it through summer so I wouldn't need the AC for a while.

This year, I've been tracking how often we needed 2 cars. It was once in a six week period, and we could have worked around that if we needed to. A few weeks ago I did an online quote with CarMax and the offer was fair, right in line with what I expected for a trade-in. I was just curious at that time. Last week I was more serious about becoming a one-car family so I redid the quote, as they expire in a week. Somehow, the car gained $1200 in value in a couple of weeks. I was expecting them to lower the offer after the appraiser inspection today but it didn't happen. They offered me exactly what they offered online. So I took it.

The process of selling a car to CarMax could not be easier. I was out of there in 60 minutes, check in hand.

One surprise (not a happy one) is that adding rental car reimbursement to the insurance policy offset a big chunk of the savings from not having the 2nd car to insure.

So now we start the grand experiment of sharing a car for the first time since I was borrowing Michelle's 84 Z-28 in college. I'm not expecting any issues. I don't leave the house for work, the local pub is only a mile away, and the library is across the street from the pub. What more do I need? :)

I am looking at bicycles, but that is a separate blog post.